Broxbourne Mill is located at the Old Mill and Meadows Site

Lee Valley Park Lee Valley Regional Park is a long linear park, much of it green spaces, running through the northeast of Greater London, Essex and Hertfordshire. The park follows the course of the River Lea (Lee) along the Lea Valley from Ware in Hertfords ...

Broxbourne Broxbourne is a town in the Borough of Broxbourne in Hertfordshire, England, with a population of 15,303 at the 2011 Census.Broxbourne Town population 2011 It is located to the south of Hoddesdon and to the north of Cheshunt, north of London. ...

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and one of the home counties. It borders Bedfordshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Essex to the east, Greater London to the ...

History

A mill stood here for 900 years before being destroyed by fire on 1 October 1949. It is the only mill in this area to be mentioned in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

1086. The first known owners were the

Knights of St. John of Jerusalem The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), is a Catholic military order. It was founded in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century and had headquarters there u ...

who held the mill to 1544 at the time of the

Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

. The mill ceased the milling of grain in 1891 and was used for a variety of uses until its destruction.

Recent history

The remnants of the mill which were renovated by the

Lee Valley Regional Park Authority Lee Valley Regional Park Authority (LVRPA) is a statutory body that is responsible for managing and developing the long, Lee Valley Regional Park. The park was established by Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1967. The headquarters of the ...

in 1977 included c16 brickwork floor and window frames of the c19 two-storey miller's house. The original

water wheel A water wheel is a machine for converting the kinetic energy of flowing or falling water into useful forms of power, often in a watermill. A water wheel consists of a large wheel (usually constructed from wood or metal), with numerous b ...

has been restored to include replacement paddles made from re-cycled plastic which have a longer life, weigh less therefore placing less stress on the original wheel. Additional work included a new side

sluice A sluice ( ) is a water channel containing a sluice gate, a type of lock to manage the water flow and water level. There are various types of sluice gates, including flap sluice gates and fan gates. Different depths are calculated when design s ...

which when raised allow excess water to pass through.

Today

The mill and its surroundings which are open to the public are known as the Old Mill and Meadows site. The main bulk of which is

wet meadow A wet meadow is a type of wetland with soils that are Solubility, saturated for part or all of the growing season which prevents the growth of trees and brush. Debate exists whether a wet meadow is a type of marsh or a completely separate type of ...

s where water voles can be found. During the summer months

dragonflies A dragonfly is a flying insect belonging to the infraorder Anisoptera below the order Odonata. About 3,000 extant species of dragonflies are known. Most are tropical, with fewer species in temperate regions. Loss of wetland habitat threate ...

and

damselflies Damselflies are flying insects of the suborder Zygoptera in the order Odonata. They are similar to dragonflies (which constitute the other odonatan suborder, Epiprocta) but are usually smaller and have slimmer bodies. Most species fold the win ...

are seen hovering over the

reedbeds A reedbed or reed bed is a natural habitat found in floodplains, waterlogged depressions and estuaries. Reedbeds are part of a succession from young reeds colonising open water or wet ground through a gradation of increasingly dry ground. As ...

. The small piece of

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with woody plants (trees and shrubs), or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the '' plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunli ...

provides habitat for birds and cover for small

mammal A mammal () is a vertebrate animal of the Class (biology), class Mammalia (). Mammals are characterised by the presence of milk-producing mammary glands for feeding their young, a broad neocortex region of the brain, fur or hair, and three ...

s such as the

fox Foxes are small-to-medium-sized omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull; upright, triangular ears; a pointed, slightly upturned snout; and a long, bushy tail ("brush"). Twelve species ...

and the

muntjac deer Muntjacs ( ), also known as the barking deer or rib-faced deer, (URL is Google Books) are small deer of the genus ''Muntiacus'' native to South Asia and Southeast Asia. Muntjacs are thought to have begun appearing 15–35 million years ago, ...

. Other activities here are

angling Angling (from Old English ''angol'', meaning "hook") is a fishing technique that uses a fish hook attached to a fishing line to tether individual fish in the mouth. The fishing line is usually manipulated with a fishing rod, although rodless te ...

which is permitted in the millpool and the millstream. Angling information
Retrieved 8 November 2007 Cycle hire is available in season and a

model railway Railway modelling (UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland) or model railroading (US and Canada) is a hobby in which rail transport systems are Model building, modelled at a reduced Scale (ratio), scale. The scale models include locomotives ...

club is open to the public at certain times.

Facilities

*Riverside holiday chalets *Car Park *Toilets *Refreshments at certain times

How to get there

Rail *

Broxbourne railway station Broxbourne railway station is on the West Anglia Main Line serving the towns of Broxbourne and Hoddesdon in Hertfordshire, England. It is down the line from Liverpool Street station, London Liverpool Street and is situated between and . Its thr ...

is close by Buses *310,311,C3 By road * A10 to A1170 to B194 Towards Broxbourne Station 2nd Right Churchfields 1st Left Mill Lane. By foot and cycle *

Lea Valley Walk The Lea Valley Walk is a long-distance path located between Leagrave, the source of the River Lea near Luton, and the Thames, at Limehouse Basin, Limehouse, east London. From its source much of the walk is rural. At Hertford the path follows ...

References

{{Reflist History of Hertfordshire Tourist attractions in Hertfordshire Lee Valley Park Broxbourne